The Week in Washington: Unlimited Presidential Harassment!

“An economic miracle is taking place in the United States, and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous partisan investigations,” President Trump declared in his interminable State of the Union speech Tuesday night. In a display of the unmitigated gall that we are sadly accustomed to by now, this target of investigations, which are neither ridiculous nor partisan, also urged his Congressional audience to “reject the politics of revenge, resistance, and retribution and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise, and the common good.”

This was pretty rich, coming from a guy who just hours before his speech hosted an off-the-record lunch with a group of TV news anchors. At this august gathering, the president reportedly referred to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer as a “nasty son of a bitch,” called former vice president Joe Biden “dumb” and even stooped to disparaging the late Republican Senator John McCain, whining once again that McCain sank his plan to repeal Obamacare, and adding, “By the way, he wrote a book and the book bombed.”

And of course, by Thursday the commander in chief was back to singing the same old song, tweeting, “So now Congressman Adam Schiff announces, after having found zero Russian Collusion, that he is going to be looking at every aspect of my life, both financial and personal, even though there is no reason to be doing so. Never happened before! Unlimited Presidential Harassment.” (At least he refrained from calling the congressman “little Adam Schitt,” the junior high school nickname he gave him last November.)

In other news: On Friday, the smug and sarcastic Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker testified before the House Judiciary Committee, during which he refused to say that the Mueller probe was not in fact a witch hunt, and thereby lending credence to the belief that his answers were intended for an audience of one. (Quick reminder of who this sterling character is—in 2014, Whitaker was allegedly involved in the market launch of a scam product called a “masculine toilet” which boasted a specially designed bowl to help “well endowed men” avoid unwanted contact with porcelain or water.) In any case, Whitaker’s “acting” gig will soon see its final performance—before the week is out, he will be replaced by new AG William Barr, who at least has said on the record that he will not interfere with the Mueller investigation. (But can we trust him? Because bear in mind—Barr is also the person who wrote an unsolicited memo to the Justice Department last June, calling Mueller’s work “fatally misconceived.”)

Psst—wanna buy a dirty picture of Jeff Bezos? American Media Inc., the company that publishes the National Enquirer, claims it has below-the-belt selfies of Bezos, and threatened him that they will print these unless Bezos publicly stated that The Enquirer’s reporting on his extramarital affair was not motivated by political concerns. But Amazon CEO Bezos, who is considered the richest man in the world and owns The Washington Post, responded not by caving in to blackmail but instead posted on the website Medium a text entitled: “No thank you, Mr. Pecker” directed at Trump buddy David Pecker, the head of AMI. (Pecker, you may recall, was instrumental in facilitating hush money payoffs to women Trump was allegedly involved with.)

In?his fascinating post, Bezos speculated on AMI’s connection to Saudi Arabia, writing, “Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their well known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks and corruption. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over and see what crawls out.”

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